Myla Dalbesio Is Starting a Revolution

Whether she’s walking the H&M runway with Pat Cleveland and Natasha Poly or shooting self-portraits for Playboy, as a model, Myla Dalbesio tends to march to the beat of her own drummer. As an artist, Dalbesio is equally adept at keeping her audience on their toes, specializing in work that is fearless, typically feminist, and always engaging. Tackling issues of female sexuality, the male gaze, and modernity, Dalbesio aims for challenging, unflinching work that includes everything from performance to photography and tends to explore controversial topics while navigating the tricky world of New York’s ultra-competitive art scene. Or as she puts it: “You have to play the game. But I don’t want to play that game. I want to play my own game. I want to make my own rules.” With influential art critics and the fashion community now paying attention to Dalbesio’s creative output, we caught up with the rising star to talk about fashion, feminism, and her hopes for a female revolution. “If we were working together and bringing each other up instead of trying to destroy each other,” says Dalbesio, “we would have so much power—can you even imagine?”

The “You Can Call Me Baby” show at Spring/Break was met with rave reviews. How did you first get involved with the fair?I’ve been working for years with the Spring/Break Art Fair. I think this is our fifth or sixth year together and maybe our seventh project. And they do themes for the fair every year, and this year the theme was Copy and Paste. So my interpretation of that was I curated an all-female show with 10 artists, including myself. It is all women who are making work that is employing themes and language and content that represents ways in which society has been demeaning and devaluing women over time, and instead they are employing it and using it as an empowering force in their life and their work.

I had one artist, Erin Riley, who makes tapestries. She weaves on a loom in her studio and they’re huge—they’re like 100 inches x 100 inches. And they take her like a little over a month to make. And they’re all stills from porn that she’s watched on her iPhone. So, she’s creating shots at her moment of climax. And we used those images—one of them was “her year in porn” and essentially a diary and a grid of every time that she watched porn on her iPhone for the year 2014. I had another artist, Signe Pierce, who worked in conjunction with this videographer Alli Coates, and I showed this video of a performance that they did in 2013 called American Reflexxx.

How does the theme of reinterpreting these demeaning stereotypes resonate with you personally?Over the past few years I’ve been diving deeper into my exploration of feminism and what it means to me. In my work I’ve been exploring these themes of women’s relationship with their bodies, especially in terms of sexuality, and them learning to kind of take control of that and take their power back in that sense. I want to find ways to help women and become more involved. I feel like when I was a teenager, I put myself into so many questionable situations sexually because I didn’t understand the kind of power that I had, and that it was valuable. Sexuality is not all about trying to make the guy happy.

My parents never talked to me about sex—my mother died when I was young, so I never had that conversation. You learn about it in school and that’s it. I think there are so many households like that. Then within the media, women are represented essentially as sex objects. Of course it is totally fine for women to be sexually free, and I consider myself super free and in tune with my body, but I do it for me, not for the male gaze. That is something I wish I had known when I was younger, and I think a dialogue needs to open up where people are more open and truthful.

What is it like working within a community of artists in New York?It’s great, and doing a show like this is fun and special. Often art can feel so competitive, and it’s the same with modeling. Jealousy is always rampant, so to be able to create a space where we can work together and support each other is so satisfying. One of the best things about curating this show specifically was being able to introduce all these girls to each other and then see how they were celebrating one another. I had Jerry Saltz come through my show and he was super psyched. He posted three of my artists on Instagram, three separate posts. And it’s a show of 11 girls and he called out three of them. Many people would look at something like that and be like, “Why didn’t he talk about my work and why did he like her work better?” Instead, I have my other artists on his Instagram commenting with emoji hearts and congratulations to these girls. I think that is so satisfying to see—that is a real class-act move.

Still, it is harder for female artists, even within seemingly progressive New York.I’m always saying that it’s 2016, I can’t believe we’re still fighting for this. It’s crazy. I’ve talked to female photographers who are friends and have tried to get agencies. And I know at least one of them who talked with a major agency, and she was, like, the woman who is running it said, “Oh, no, I’m sorry, we can’t take you, we already have a female.” Out of a whole agency, they have one. People are still looking at it like that, which is so ridiculous to me. There are still major galleries in Chelsea that represent zero female artists.

It can be frustrating. I was talking to another artist about how it often feels like we’re trapped inside of this world where we can’t call someone out and we just have to put up with these things because we’re worried, What if this critic who I feel was talking down to me writes something bad about me or doesn’t review my show? And it feels like you’re just trapped in this box where you can’t hold anyone accountable because you’re worried about how it will bite you in the butt. But what’s great about talking about something like that with this group of women was if we could all join together on this and support each other, like, who cares if they don’t write about us.

I guess it’s the same in any industry. You have to play the game. But I don’t want to play that game. I want to play my own game. I want to make my own rules. There is power in numbers and strength in that way. I’m feeling really positive about joining forces with the women around me to make positive changes. The tokenism that exists within the industry encourages this cattiness and competition between women that is totally unnecessary. If we were working together and bringing each other up instead of trying to destroy each other so we could get ahead, we would have so much power—can you even imagine?

How does fashion play into the engagement of artists in media?Across the board it is important for women to feel like they have a voice and that they’re represented. I think when you only see images of one certain type of person, then you feel ignored. There is just so much power in the feeling of belonging and being heard, and if you don’t ever see yourself anywhere, you’ll never feel that way. I think fashion—and media in general—is doing a great disservice to so many women by not representing them. I just think we’re on a good path now; diversity is growing and being encouraged, which is amazing, but it still has a long way to go.

You were a part of the H&M show, which really embodied that message of representation and diversity—what was that experience like for you?That was such amazing casting—my mind was blown. To be walking in a show in Paris is in itself something that was kind of unexpected. Especially at the part of the industry where I’ve been working for so long, it just never seemed like a possibility, especially Paris, where the sizes they prefer are extreme. It was just never something that I ever thought would happen. Then to not just be walking, but to be there with supermodels was insane. That show really proved how gorgeous this kind of diversity can be. No one could look at that show and think this isn’t high fashion—every model looked incredible. To be a part of it was such a huge honor for me.

What is your next project for 2016?I’m really focusing on photography this year. I’m toying with the idea of curating a show over the summer with more female artists and more focused on the body—specifically, women who are making work with or about their relationships with their bodies. The fair just closed yesterday, and it’s been such a crazy, wild week. And right now it seems almost anything is possible. I went to see this show at the Brooklyn Museum, and it was about activist art, and there was a little section about the women’s movement from 1913 on—it was so amazing to see these drawings, photos, and artifacts from this time when women were really fighting together for these super . . . like, the right to vote, something we take for granted now. And it wasn’t even that long ago that we gained that right. And there was a banner and it said, “Together women will take their lives into their own keeping,” which I just thought was so great. We’re still fighting for so many things: equal pay, the right for health-care access. I would love to see women come together in that same way again.